Officer Cleared of Killing Arab Child

PA residents claimed murder, but did not allow Israel to see the child’s body or hospital records. Witnesses gave conflicting testimony.

By Maayana Miskin

First Publish: 10/30/2012, 6:19 PM

Border Police

Flash 90

Former Border Police officer Omri Abu has been found innocent of the murder of an Arab child from the Palestinian Authority-controlled village of Naalin. Ahmed Moussa, 11, died in 2008 during a riot in the area, and local residents accused Abu of shooting and killing him.

Abu was known to have fired his personal weapon during the riot, but it was not clear that he had in fact hit anyone.

Justice Liora Frankel of the Ramle Magistrate’s Court wrote a lengthy verdict explaining why she did not see fit to convict Abu. “The causal relationship between the defendant’s actions and the death was not proven,” she stated.

“I believe the fact that the Palestinian side did not allow the Israeli side to examine the body and/or receive documents from the hospital emergency room at which the deceased was treated immediately after the alleged event… planted doubt as to the causal relationship,” she added.

Witnesses reported seeing blood at the scene, Frankel noted, but it was not proven that the blood belonged to the deceased boy and not to another person at the riot.

Frankel stated that the testimony given by two witnesses in the case was not believable, noting that the two had contradicted each other.

While she cleared Abu of both murder and manslaughter charges due to lack of evidence, she convicted him of endangering human life through improper use of a firearm.